Asphodel
by Nerumi H
Summary: Today is the day you will liberate Mituna of the hideous taxidermy meowbeast that is his hair, and what his image means to you. Heavy Crotuna.


.title.: **Asphodel**

.summary.: **Today is the day you will liberate Mituna of the hideous taxidermy meowbeast that is his hair, and what his image means to you.**

.characters.: **Cronus Ampora/Mituna Captor (one-sided)**

.warnings.: **Slurs, non-explicit mentions of rape and murder, and (mild?) assault of the sexual variety. It started fluffy I swear but I just can't keep anything angst-less.**

.a/n.: **Are y'all as shocked as I am that I'm uploading for Homestuck? It's something that's scared me ever since I started reading it. Then again, all canon characters scare me.**

**Cronus is just our typical villain but so many people are very sensitive about him, or so it seems. I personally find him very interesting, albeit infuriating, hilarious, and creepy. And hey, it's his fault I'm back in Homestuck, so I got to thank him. He was very difficult to comfortably write (his dialogue went through the most editing I think I've ever done on one fic) but not as difficult as Mituna. The two of them went through many drafts so I hope they're adequate.**

**Please review any opinions. It really means a lot!**

**X**

_You make me think of someone wonderful but I can't place her;_

_I wake up every morning wishing one more time to face her._

_- Maroon 5_

**X**

Your name is Cronus Ampora and today is the day you will liberate Mituna of the hideous taxidermy meowbeast that is his hair.

He often has it hidden under his helmet (a fact to which you say Thank God, even though you can't stand that helmet one bit), but on occasion you'll catch him without it, black curls and ruffles exploding out of his scalp with wild abandon. The blatant insult which is his hair has simply gone on too long. And to subject _you _into seeing it? Really, really unfair.

Well perhaps it's not the seeing it that bothers you so much. Helmet-less Mituna smoothes out a little of the edge he usually gives you, but it's more the _audacity_ he has to look like that around such handsome majesty as yourself. Like he doesn't even care that to everyone else (that to you) he looks like some chewed-on banged-up plaything at the bottom of a very old toy box, while you're beyond price. And who would you be if you kept letting him and his pity points be limited to those fake quadrant fills he has? Not a very good friend, surely.

So today you traipse up to where he stands at the cusp of the bridge. He makes his grand impression to you by trying to jump on the railing and stumbling back down. His skateboard is in hand.

You slip your hands casually into your pockets, swaggering to his side. The helmet is on, but out the back of it you can see fluffs of hair fanning on his embarrassing suit. Head whipping around to see you, his stupid vacuity of actual words leaves you the space to speak first. The way you prefer.

"Hey there, Chief."

"Hi Cronus," he responds indifferently, tucking his board under his arm again.

You frown. "That's all I get? Come on, I'm your buddy, how's a little "how are you" between friends?"

"I don't fffffucking care how-how you are," Mituna replies.

"Fine. I care, though. How are _you?"_

"Skating."

You raise an eyebrow. "You know how often you skate? You're no good at it, anyways; you're just going to bash up your brain even more than you have. And that'll do absolutely nothing for your image.

"W-what the _fuck do you_ know about iiiimage c-c-cocks - "

You flash him a grin, sidling past that insult. Such immaturity is typical of him. He just doesn't know what he's saying; never does, but you hope he's lucid enough today to understand you when you say: "You know what you _don't_ do? Groom yourself, Mituna. Enough of looking like the infectious bottom-feeder you are. I've got a plan and let me just say, it's a challenge even _I'll_ have trouble conquering, but when have I ever failed you?"

His visor flashes your way while he stances his hands on the stone railing. "W-wh-what are you saying - "

"It's simple." You levitate a hand and - to your utter insult - he jolts backwards to avoid it. You were only going to knock on his helmet, shit. "I'm gonna lighten your load of pail-repellant features. Your personality is still a long, exhausting work in progress, but today I mean your hair."

"No you ssstupid FUCKING SH-itstick," he argues like a wriggler while he pushes down on the bridge - he's hoisted up to his precarious perch, and it is with the kindness in your heart and completely honest worry for his safety that you wrap an arm around his waist and pull.

It's not your fault that Captor is a fucking spaz and nearly capsizes the both of you in his mad scramble to get away. He's thrashing and shrieking like some animal, and you are anything but impressed at the elbows being thrown in your face and the knees in your gut.

So you drop him down to save yourself.

Mituna lands in a twitching heap, oversized fangs gnashing over his screams until you finally lose your patience and give him a modestly forceful kick to the side. He stops. Scrambles up to his feet.

"Don't touchchch - "

"Don't touch the merchandise; so you keep saying," you drawl, "and yet you keep throwing yourself into situations where I have to. Don't blame me, Mituna. I'm the one going to bruise."

He's a flash of yellow and black as he lunges for his board and his skinny bowlegs try to zip him away - you have a hand in the back of his doofus suit before he can go crying to his moirail (and jeepers, do you ever _not_ want that.) His suit - you'll have to fix that too. Maybe you could sacrifice some of the extra fabric you bleached to make your current species-fluid garb. Hit him up with a nice vest.

He writhes to face you again, more "don't touch me"s and "let go"s surely trapped behind his deformed teeth, but you unhand him before he can. You won't let him make this look like your fault.

"Follow me," you say, "and try to learn a little. I'll only take a bit of time, give or take, depending on how much of a skuzz mess you've got under that helmet."

You can't see his eyes but you can tell by the simmering spasms in his shoulders and hands that he's glowering at you. He might just explode again.

Mouth drawing into a resolute grimace, he replies as if he knows what you're doing, "I don't w-want any qua-quadrants with you, I have 'Tula."

"Let me catch a break here, Mituna!" You dryly chuckle at him. As if you'd dream of that with him. (As if you haven't.) "And besides, Pyrope can't fill all of them, Chief. Skag can't even fill one properly."

"She can!" His face both happily lit up and struck fury upon the mentions of his matesprit. Personally you think she's better suited for yourself, but not like anyone will let you slip in that suggestion. Ever.

"Hunh. I meant _you_ can't fill it. You remember why she's so disappointed?"

He twists his mouth like he's thinking but you have a dreading feeling he doesn't give a shit anymore.

"Let me help."

Mituna's grimace morphs to a frown, a snarl, and what looks like a flash of the grin he gets when he thinks he's come up with some riotous vulgar joke. You patiently watch him, because if there's one thing you have a lot of, it's patience. That kick was just a fluke. A scuffed mark on his ribs shows you that momentary break of your pacifist mentality, but the fact you saved him from a potentially deadly plunge into the river makes up for it.

And then his face relaxes in a chilled, pathetic kind of way, and he acquiesces with, "Okay, Cronus."

"That's the spirit!" You grin and merrily fall in right beside him. He lets you swing an arm around his shoulders without blowing a gasket, which is honestly so very satisfying. You like him a little more like this.

At least until the apologies leak up.

But you're lucky and he doesn't yet assault you with that horseshit, instead just shuffling along the rainbow-brick bridge with you, skateboard uselessly hung under his arm. He's quiet for once and so you proceed to fill in the silence with the sound of your voice, knowing it will set him at ease, if your presence didn't do that already once he stopped skipping to conclusions about the areas your hands may or may not wander and the tone of voice you give him.

"This'll be the tops, Mituna. You just wait. You'll be able to wingman with me again; I know you loved that, since I loved that." Bringing up that past sparks the usual twinge in your chest, but you still have a feeling it's the best way to convince him – it's the best way to convince yourself. "I won't have to brush you off in fear of you shitting yourself and ruining my potential dates like nowadays. It's real exhausting, you know that? You know what you put me through?"

Mituna sort of nods. "No."

"Are you listening? I think I'm making it pretty clear here, bud."

"No."

Whatever. You look around until you find the building that you once belonged to, or at least pretended to belong to. Eons and eons here get kind of boring without any solid promises from the environment, but as always, you make due. Ahab's Crosshairs are still smashed by the hive, done by Meenah's merciless attack on them, probably just done to make you hacked like everything else she does. All it really did was make you increasingly hot and bothered at her aggressiveness - like everything else she does, too.

You shoulder open the door and the area filters in around the two of you - dream bubbles are strange in their fabrication, and even though you've been dead for so long, you've never really had any interest in figuring out how they're supposed to work. And, you mean, they probably don't work right. Why else would your walls be so empty? Where are your turntables? Meenah in your bed? Yeah, they're broken. You gently push Mituna to the edge of a desk chair, while you retract a pocket knife from the surface among your combs and dutiful hairgel.

He's still got no eyes but you can practically feel his weird broken-psii-vision-whatever boring into the hand that is wielding.

"Are you a dog or something? Sniff it or whatever you need; you're going to be seeing a lot of it." You wave it in front of his face a couple times just for emphasis - his nose crunches up and he nearly bites you when he spurts at top volume, "DON'T FFFUCKIKING PUT THAT NNNNEAR ME FISHBALLS DDDON'T - FUCK OFF!"

"I'm not planning on 'fucking off'," you reply, "and I thought I told you in confidence about my new identity, Mituna? At least have the coertousy to keep 'fish' out of your insults. Sheesh. At least I still don't have to worry about you spreading it around like the disease you are. Now." You tuck the knife between your thumb and middle finger while you reach out for his helmet again. "Are you gonna be a gentlemen and let me take this off?"

"You don't t-take fuckdamn ANYTHING off of ME I do it I DO IT MYSELF."

You sigh and roll your eyes. "If you try to do it yourself we all know it's gonna be like trying to save the perfectly good air air you're wasting. Futile. Even though we would all like it, and believe me, friend, if you managed to, I would be clapping until even you couldn't stand the racket anymore. But," you manage to grip your fingers under the back of the helmet by pressing very close to him, "that's a few more hours you don't need to be embarrassing yourself in."

"NO! NO NO NO NO NO NO - "

You yank the plastic atrocity off and Mituna's skull practically combusts with the black curly mass. His hair isn't quite as bad as Kurloz's, but, well, you can see where they kicked off their friendship. Tar-coloured waves fall into his eyes, across his cheekbones, flattened dully with the sauna that the helmet makes out of his head. It's like someone plucked a dozen crows and just glued their scrappy feathers on to his scalp. You find it a pity that no one seems to manage to get their hair to look as good as yours, and you don't even spend that much time on it. Yet another highblood privilege, you suppose. Not like you'd ever brag.

Mituna clasps his hands over his ears, fingers taut and clawed as usual. He isn't yelling yet, though you feel like you should start counting your blessings starting with how you bypassed Leijon's unfortunate fate, because those teeth are grinding like crooked engine cut-outs.

But instead you flip the knife in your hand as if you're going to gut someone, and grab a fistful of his hair. May as well chop it to a length you can handle before you start with the real styling.

And just as you have the blade seconds away from the first triumphant slice, you realise for how messy it all looks, it's astonishingly soft. Silky weightless strands, nothing like your heavy helmet-like mix of grease and skill. Just earnestly bouncy and warm.

Mituna ruins the moment and you regret not slicing quicker.

"GET YOUR HA-HANDS OFF'VE ME FFFFFAND BACK IN YOUR DAMNSHHHIT OWN NOOK FISHDICK GET OFFFFF!"

Gills flaring in alarm, you hold away the knife to stop him from cutting his own skin. "Cool it, stallion!" You try to meld your sneer and smirk but it just ends up as a snarl and you don't really regret it - especially when it shuts him up for an instant. "I'm not gonna hurt you! You know me, Mituna; I wouldn't hurt you."

His mouth twitches slackly and you doubt he believes you. He's so stubborn. He's always been wrong about you.

But now is not the time to be mad at him. You're helping him and he needs to realise that, to make your task easier. You're good at ridiculous things like this and you know just what Mituna needs.

That is, if he'll calm down at least halfway so you can get your words in. He's screaming (or is that laughing?) again.

He bares his teeth at you. You wonder momentarily how Latula even kisses him with those huge chompers in the way. You reconsider for not the first time why you even thought once upon a time that you'd sleep with him.

You mean,_ look_ at him.

You crouch down to his level in the chair, narrowing your eyes at the scrappy fan of fringe that covers his. Nose tiny and pointed, there is a honey-coloured crease across the bridge where his visor normally digs in.

You try to smile but even you can feel how oily it comes out. It's not your fault, though, it's his, for making the two of you realise this stressed part of yourself. At least you're not yelling. "_Mituna,_ you listen to me. This isn't so difficult for even _you_ to comprehend if you try hard enough. You already know what a vile dimwit you are, and you must have realised how disgusted it makes other people when you're around them."

He replies, "I h-have the people I wwwant already."

"But do they always want you?" You press the smile. "See, Chief, I got a real quick step to fix it all. You see what I'm getting at?"

His expression goes placid. You don't need to wait for one of his slobbery "okay"s before you pat a hand on his shoulder, give it a squeeze, once again reassess letting him live with that stupid spacesuit, and stand back up. You fist a large hunk of hair again, and this time, he lets you saw it apart - whispery strands fall loose in your hand and some flutter onto his shoulders.

You toss the hair away. You grin. Progress. Feels sweet.

You continue your work with a new light of cheer, sawing and chopping, his messy black hair drifting away cut by cut. You feel better with every stroke, even though the point isn't really for you - but as you trim around his ears (small, pointed, tilting back uncomfortably when your breath tickles on them) you realise that maybe it_ is_ quite a lot for you.

You don't like Mituna making a fool of himself. You don't like him crutching you - for Cronus Ampora and Mituna Captor to be associated with each other makes your body tense and not in the good way – and you also hate the idea of him making a mockery of his own image just on his own. You can cut his hair, give him new clothes, and maybe teach him to actually scrounge up some coordination. You can't help his retarded tendencies, though. That's where your mission to make him what he once was falls short.

You don't like seeing this new Mituna sullying the body and reputation of the old (real) one.

You slice off a chunk of hair at his forehead. This Mituna horrifies you because he ruined the old one, and now you're stuck with him – his imitations and fallacies of what you two were. You want to kill him all over again. It's not like he fucked himself up for a better reason the first time.

This Mituna... Your ego means too much but he can hold it above your head just out of reach without even trying, making you hate all you've done to him, making your feelings of detest and obsession so potent it burns hot red; spins in your head, a violent hurricane, a torturous fire. You dream of tearing him apart in any way you can; hearing him cry and scream in agony, fear, real fury that isn't a product of his brain damage. You want his nails to dig into your back – in ecstasy, in horror – and you want him to wreck to pieces beneath you, you want him to beg – cry – for you to stop. That's all you've ever wanted him to do but he doesn't care enough to let up on _you_ – He isn't _clueless_ as to what he puts you through; he just doesn't care.

You rip away another piece.

You hate him. Sometimes.

Mituna shrieks. He struggles away – his hair flies from your hand and you realise mustard-coloured blood is dribbling from a laceration above his eyebrow.

The knife slams down with a crash and your hands fly to grip his shoulders, shove him towards you – his yelling is so loud it shivers through the membrane of your gills, making them tremble and fury boil up your throat. You get a glimpse of his silvery eyes, crushed into pulsating slits as he hollers profanities and a flurry of spittle into your face.

And so you let your own words charge out of your lungs, the loudest you've ever dared yourself to reach: "_SHUT UP, MITUNA!"_

His eyes grow enormous.

So close to them you find yourself staring far behind the shock, the emptiness that forms a solid wall of silence. You feel like if you yell again they'll shatter like clouded glass.

They remind you too much of before, and when diluted yellow liquid starts to rise around his lashes, your mind wheels back to him bloody and clutching at no one there, sparking, broken.

You should have told him then, so it would be the last thing he remembered before he turned into _this_, instead of recalling you hollering at him to get some sense.

But you fucked up instead.

"Hey, don't cry, come—come the_ fuck_ on, don't," you mutter. Your voice jumps between snarls and whispers, and your hands start to rub into his shoulders, sharp agitated strokes against the plastic fabric of his clothing. "You're better than that."

At least, at one point he was.

Mituna murmurs a subdued, "I'm sorry."

"No, you're not; if you were, you'd stop putting me through this." The plastic is sticking against the sweat on your skin so you draw your hands closer to his neck—he whispers his cravenness once again as you sink your fingers down the collar of his suit. His skin is oddly chill with a sheen of sweat, and he lets you massage out your own worries over the jutting bones in the nape of his neck; the rolling of his tense muscles eases you beyond words; you haven't touched him like this since even before he blew out his own brain. You breathe, "Why're you crying at me? You don't need to try to pull me down with you."

His eyes slowly blink. He's so quiet it's an ease on your soul, as damaged as it is now. You try to fill in the empty air with things he said to you a long time ago, but they slip away as evasive as time itself. You're dead and will stay dead, but the clock still has a way of controlling you—every day is another day without him, another day you've dug yourself further away from him with your insults and lies to yourself. You bet he hates you.

But you don't hate him. It burns as ferociously as if it is revulsion, disgust; but when he's furthest out of reach and your mind wanders to dark places and your heart to much worse, you figure you must have loved him.

One more time, he says it. "I'm sorry." You know you're just fucking with yourself now, but your want to take his apology as a word that assuages you for all he's ever done to you and denied you makes you settle on a realisation that hurts more than it heals.

You _do_ love him.

It's an ugly kiss. Not delicate or tender, it is messy, wet, desperate and you want so much to assimilate yourself to the taste of Mituna that you don't even try to work the reputation you've built so hard for yourself. You draw him deep to you with your hands around his neck, and Mituna – he's slack and seemingly confused; you don't even care right now if he's lucid. You are driven by sweeps and sweeps and torrid misery to melt inside him, boil away against his skin.

You feel his soft lips draw back taut against his teeth. A retreat; a broken whine shivers in your mouth.

You aren't done yet. You have him now – can't let him take himself away from you again. Fingers digging into whatever inch of him you can grab, the kiss scrapes rougher and you're infusing danger without even meaning to. You choke away his words with the rogue attacks of your tongue against his; you're shattering your own thoughts again, wrapped up in the Mituna who could speak and didn't infuriate you and respected you and you could respect him back as easily as you can now dream of killing him.

You feel a piercing pain from your horn and with it, Mituna throws you back, his flailing paws gouging at your face on the way. You hold up an arm in defence as Mituna hurls himself away, panicking and screaming and he _ruins it._

You throw yourself to your feet and stumble out of the way of his spasms. A hand roughly wiping away the traces of what you just did from your mouth, you stare at what he's transformed into right before your eyes – Mituna Captor is gone, or perhaps he was never even there, replaced by this writhing, useless retard.

At least, for a minute, you could pretend you kissed the man you wanted most.

"Are you done your fit?" you ask harshly.

His head arches back, messy hair half-cut and yet still the wild grating of his teeth makes him look infallibly like brain damaged, disgusting, selfless Captor. Irreplaceable Captor. He glares at you. He snarls.

"G-g-GO BURN – DIE SLOWLY AMPORA ALL FUCKING OVER AGAIN YOU R-R-ROTTEN FUCKINGFFFFFUCK - " he spits. Enraged.

The two of you stare at each other for a long moment. He spits a final, "DIE."

You don't have the energy to yell back. You don't have the energy to argue.

You grab his helmet and throw it at his lap—his hands clasp around it like a saviour, shoulders twitching. You don't give him a chance to mope over it before you grip his shoulder and yank him to his feet.

His tears have dried in streaks down his bony cheeks. He clamps his helmet back on his head and for once you're grateful for it – it hides more of that stupid task that you tortured yourself with. He flips down the visor like it's bullet-proof.

You almost wait for him to make you bleed a little more with an apology.

He says nothing.

You grit your teeth. And then take a breath, smooth back your hair, swallow what remains of his saliva and make sure you cringe. Then level your voice. You seek normality, suddenly, like a drug – not what you both were _before_ his sacrifice, not anymore, but what you were before the kiss.

The Mituna you hate. The Cronus you hate.

The people you both forever are.

"Well, if we're gonna be sharing tips from friend to friend like that, I'll let you know that you might want to watch the vulgarity. Puts a woman off."

Mituna grimaces. He says firmly, "Not friends," and then he scrambles for the door like some spooked animal. The door slams on you, but it's not like you'd have anything to say.

Your hands shake, and it's more than Kurloz's impending revenge that is making you weak; you can feel his blood, smudged on you during the embrace, drying tightly. The kiss still burns acidic in your mouth.

Your name is Cronus Ampora and you are a liar, pathetic, a sleaze, and in love with someone who you now know very well, no longer exists.

The dreams don't stop that night, and never will.


End file.
